


Seijin-shiki

by Allekha



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Coming of Age, Ficlet, Gen, Pre-Canon, Self Confidence Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25754998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allekha/pseuds/Allekha
Summary: Fresh off of winning his first national title, Yuuri is pressured into staying in Japan for Coming of Age day, and thinks about how his achievements stack up against what Victor had accomplished by his age.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: Unofficial FFA Unanon Collection





	Seijin-shiki

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: coming of age ceremonies
> 
> Takes place in January 2013.

Yuuri had meant to fly straight back to Detroit after Nationals were done. But his parents had wanted the pictures, and then Celestino had apparently thought it was some big cultural thing he couldn't miss, and then his old coach from Kobe had overheard the argument and said that he could train with her group for a couple of weeks if he wanted, and somehow he'd capitulated to staying for Coming of Age day.  
  
He could have skipped it. He would have been fine with skipping it. Mari had skipped it. But here he was.  
  
Yuuri had gone all-out and rented the traditional clothes, letting the dressers wrap him in a dark kimono and hakama. It was kind of fun to wear something different, at least, and it would make the photos stand out from the ones of him looking grave-faced in a suit at a banquet or a press conference or something. Even if Mari had ended up bothering with the ceremony, she hadn't been seen in any kind of fancy dress since their parents had put her in a furisode for shichi-go-san years and years ago.  
  
The federation sent someone to take a few pictures for a fluff piece. Yuuri was the new men's national champion, after all. He tried to look dignified and serious, though he wasn't sure how well it worked.  
  
It was hard to pay attention to the ceremony itself, and it was hard not to think all day about what he'd accomplished so far in his career and how it compared to others. Like Victor. At twenty, Victor had been coming victoriously out a slump – one that Yuuri had always had faith he would get through – and with a ton of medals already around his neck. Three-time national champion, with a bronze and silver, too. An Olympic gold medal at seventeen, and on his way to his second. Multiple medals from Worlds and Euros and the GP series, quite a few of them gold.  
  
At seventeen, Yuuri hadn't placed high enough at senior Nationals to earn a place on the Japanese Olympic team. He'd mostly still been competing as a junior. The fact that he'd won Nationals this year was – it was incredible, it was exciting, but he still couldn't help but wonder if it was a blip. A career high. He'd taken gold at NHK this season, but had missed the GP Final; last year, he'd somehow made third place at Four Continents and barely scraped into a lucky eighth-place finish at Worlds. His record was nothing when measured against Victor's.  
  
Celestino said it wasn't good to compare himself to others too much. But it was frustrating that Victor could land two different kinds of quads by twenty, and Yuuri still couldn't land his salchow without falling half the time, let alone think of taking on Victor's new quad flip, or Chris's amazing quad lutz. He couldn't win competitions on his step sequences and axel alone.  
  
After the ceremony, Yuuri waited for his bus with a group of other young people who were all dressed up, some of them complaining that they still didn't feel like adults yet. Yuuri felt enough like an adult. He'd moved away from home to skate, moved countries, had been competing in seniors with people older than him for a couple of years now. He paid his own bills and cooked his own meals and forgot to call his parents very often.  
  
The only problem was that he wasn't good enough at skating yet, and he was running out of time to get there. He had to get stronger, had to get better at performing, had to make his jumps more reliable. Next season was an Olympic one again, and Yuuri desperately wanted to be on that team. He wanted to compete in Russia, compete with Victor, and end up standing on that podium next to him.  
  
So he turned in his rental kimono at the shop, and a few hours later, he left Japan behind for Detroit. The pictures the photographer had taken turned out okay; his face didn't look too weird, and his parents called to coo over how handsome he appeared.  
  
At his first practice as a real, official adult, he landed all but one of his quad salchow attempts, and Yuuri let himself dream of Russia and Victor and gold.


End file.
